That’s Elko, Nevada. I guess i shoulda stopped in some of the little ghost towns for some photo ops, as i took only one pic all day long. I missed a spectacular shot by seconds but then was unwilling to drive the extra fifty miles it would have taken to loop back for it. Now i’m wishing i had. I was kinda thinking i’d stop for the day just before sunset and take advantage of the light angle for some shots, but Nevada doesn’t offer a lot of towns with motels, and it was a little too early when i passed Battle Mountain, and then the onset of darkness was enhanced by blowing dust as i approached Elko. Damn. Reminds me of Odessa. Way too much like Odessa.
I’ll try for some local color shots in the morning before pressing on to Salt Lake City and poking around downtown and taking a look at that big Mormon temple. It’ll be a strange sensation to be standing there surrounded by raving lunatic, foam-spewing Mormons. A cult based on Christianity but with an extra layer of lunacy on top. After all, not all that high a percentage of Christians still believe that the earth is 6000 years old at the center of the universe with everything revolving around it, including the sun. The Mormons, though, believe all that plus an extra helping of craziness in the Book of Mormon since Joseph Smith could not have guessed when he was writing it in the early part of the nineteenth century that advances in anthropology, linguistics, and genetics would make utterly hilarious his claim that the American Indians were descendants of Hebrews who sailed across the Atlantic about three thousand years ago. As if the idea of Hebrews trekking across Africa, building ocean-going ships, and sailing across the Atlantic 3000 years ago were not ludicrous enough in itself without claiming that they populated the Americas and had wars with horse-drawn chariots, no evidence of either of which has ever been found.
Me, i’ll just keep on sailing east before i turn right, go south, and head west for the Grand Canyon. And i might as well confess it now, but shortly after my return to San Francisco i dropped my laptop and now cannot access any of the pics i downloaded out of the camera onto it.
So what we’d settle for as today’s pic is a shot i took in southwestern Colorado: